Six Drinks, One Plot
by Julia456
Summary: Or, Julia Has No Idea What To Entitle This.
1. Exploitation

Note: Akili started doing these beverage challenges - there're six, all told - and I thought it looked like so much fabulous fun that I jumped onboard with her. Of course, the astute reader will notice a pattern to my pairing choices. :)

There is, actually, an order here. Just not numerical.

---

**  
4. Fruit Juice**

Josh likes being on the road. He likes going to new places, meeting new people, showing off and kicking bad guys around. He likes the command van - when he's in it, he still feels like he's hanging with a rock star - and he likes being with two of his best friends twenty-four-seven.

But he also has a deep affection for coming home. Specifically, he enjoys the morning after they come home, when he can lounge around on the couch, eat cereal, play video games with Berto, and watch Kat do all the laundry they were too lazy to do on the road.

"Don't get bleach on my shirt," he calls as she lugs another armload to the washing machine. He doesn't mean any of the clothes in the laundry basket. He means the borrowed t-shirt she's wearing (all her pink ones are in the rinse cycle), and he says it only because he thinks she might take exception to _You look unbelievably sexy in my shirt_.

"Maybe you should do it _yourself_," she calls back, voice sharp and irritated.

Josh grins around a mouthful of Cheerios. "Nah, that's okay."

She comes into the living room again and glares at him. "Anything else? 'Cause I'm not doing another load after this."

Berto shakes his head, eyes glued to the video game on the TV. "_Nada_. But thanks."

Josh shrugs, says, "Maybe some socks out in the van," but makes no move to go get them.

Kat glares.

"What? Berto's on level nine. He needs me. For moral support."

Berto wisely says nothing.

Kat glares.

Josh heaves an exaggerated sigh and puts the cereal bowl on the coffee table. "Okay, okay. Let's go."

He follows her out to the van and tries not to get caught studying her sweatpants or that borrowed shirt - or, more accurately, everything under the shirt and sweats. He never thought a four-year-old _Be A Hero: Donate Blood!_ shirt could look that good, but it does. He never thought laundry day would be the highlight of a trip, either.

There's a pair of socks wedged in a corner of his bunk. He pulls them out and tosses them to her. She catches them automatically, then makes a face and shakes her head. 

"What?"

"_Boys_," is all she says as they head back inside. She throws the socks into the washer, adds soap, and turns it on. "Okay. Now I want some food."

Josh trails Kat to the kitchen. While she's nuking a breakfast burrito, he gets out the orange juice and a plastic UC Del Oro Scorchers cup from a basketball game he went to, with Pete, about a million years ago. He makes sure that he fills the cup as high as it can reasonably be filled, because he knows she takes her orange juice seriously.

When he hands it to her, she smiles and says, "Thanks. Not for the socks - for the shirt."

"Hey, anytime." And he means it. Yes he does. He clears his throat and adds, "I'll help you with folding."

"Yes you will," she says, eyes full of mischief. She takes a swig of juice, and then somehow beats him back to the couch.


	2. Get Well Soon!

Note: This is set after the season two episode "Old Friend, New Enemy".

**---**

**1. Water**

"How do you feel?" Max asked.

Kat groaned into the thin sickbay pillow. Her whole body ached, and her ankle - where Biocon's fangs had sunk in - felt like it had been set on fire and then stomped out.

Still, it was a big improvement from the last time she'd come to: right after the antivenom had flushed the worst of it out of her system. At least now she was in a real bed with sheets and blankets and everything.

"Like I got bitten by a big ugly snake," she said. Her voice sounded scratchy. Felt scratchy, too.

A chuckle. "Yeah... You did."

"Did you get him?" she asked. When he didn't anwer right away, she begrudgingly cracked open her eyes and glared, blearily. "Don't make me repeat myself, Steel."

He was looking at the floor, shoulders slumped. "No. I didn't get him. I think he might - be dead."

"Oh," she said. She pushed herself up on her elbows and blinked, trying to focus. "Sorry. You didn't -?"

Max sat back with a heavy exhale. "I kinda wanted to," he admitted. "But I guess it's okay, in the end. That wasn't Dr. Klimo anymore, you know? I don't know if the guy I remember was even the real deal."

"Still sucks," Kat said. She coughed, trying to get the sandpaper feeling out of her throat.

"Yeah." He glanced at her, but as soon as their eyes met, he looked away again. "Kat. I just - I'm so sorry. I shouldn'tve let him - I mean, I'm your _partner_, I should've -"

"Quit whining," she interrupted. "Help your partner and give her some water, huh?"

She gestured at the cup and pitcher standing just out of her reach. He practically jumped to bring it to her, and she took a long, highly satisfying pull of cool deliciousness that mostly got rid of the scratchy feeling.

Max stayed next to the bed, leaning on the metal rail. He still had guilt tattooed all over his face. "I should've noticed you needed help sooner."

Kat rolled her eyes. "You're whining again. Look, I got hurt. That's gonna happen when I run around with a bunch of freaks. But I'm alive, I'm okay, and if you keep angsting over stuff, I'll _show_ you I'm okay by kicking your ass. Okay?"

He was obviously taken aback, but after a moment, a grin spread out, replacing the guilt. "Okay."

"Could use some more water, though," she said, tossing him the empty cup. He sketched a mock salute, still grinning, and fetched her another drink.

"I have to go," he said when he brought it to her. "Dad wants to debrief me or something. But I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I think we've established that," she said drily.

"I think we have." He studied her for a long second, then bent down and kissed her cheek, soft and quick - but very certain. "So, um - later," he said, beating a swift retreat from the infirmary room.

Kat blinked, incredulous, then took a drink of water that did nothing to stop her face from turning pink or a wave of giggles from bubbling up.

The pillow did help to muffle it, though.


	3. Caution: Coffee May Be Spiked

Note: This is set after the season three episode "Survival Instinct".

**---**

**5. Coffee  
**  
Later that morning, Josh came back from a rejuvenating ski run and found Kat sitting on the steps of their new van, watching something - or someone - on the slopes through a pair of binoculars. "What's up?"

She lowered the binoculars and pointed. "Ethan Raptor's spaz attack."

Josh squinted and zoomed in. Sure enough, there was Ethan, acting... weird. Well, weirder than usual. "He's, um, kind of hyper today, huh?"

"Sometimes revenge tastes like four double-espresso shots mixed into your grande mochachino latte," Kat said.

Josh switched his attention to her. "You spiked his coffee with _coffee_?"

She shrugged, but her malicious grin belied any nonchalance. "Idiot chugged it down - it's not _my_ fault. Besides, he almost killed all of us yesterday. Twice! A caffeine headache is the _least_ I can give him."

He couldn't help it: he started laughing. "Remind me never to drink coffee around you," he said as she stood up, dusting snow off her pants.

"How do you feel about drinking hot chocolate around me?"

"Will there be little marshmallows?" he asked, hopeful. He was cold, and he loved hot chocolate with little marshmallows.

Kat grinned. "Sure. Oh, hey, I almost forgot. Yesterday, when you were missing and presumed annoyed to death, I had this idea."

"What?" he started to ask, but got cut off when she put an arm around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss. It lasted a while and he felt considerably less cold by the time they pulled apart.

"It was a good idea," he said.

"You're not allowed to die, McGrath," she said.

"Neither are you," he said. "At least, not until I get those little marshmallows."

Kat snickered and kissed him again. This time there was a mocking hoot, distant but echoing, from nearer to the ski lodge. "Get a room, losers!" Ethan's voice called.

Kat bristled. "Now revenge is gonna taste like rat poison."

Josh laughed again. "C'mon," he said, took her hand, and went in search of unspiked hot drinks. Preferably, ones with little marshmallows.


	4. Alternative Fuel Sources

**6. Beer**

"What's up?" Kat asked, dropping down onto the picnic table bench beside him.

Josh scowled vaguely at the empty beer bottle in his hands. "I'm twenty-one."

"Yup. Legal in all fifty states."

"It's a company picnic on a hot summer day."

"Yup again."

"There's free beer."

She took a swig of her own beer and said cheerfully, "God bless America and N-Tek."

"And everyone needs to be a _little_ drunk to play all the games this afternoon."

"I'm not getting into a potato sack otherwise," she agreed, and belched with with remarkable ladylikeness. "So what's the problem?"

He looked around and made sure there was no one within earshot before saying, "The nanoprobes. They absorb alcohol. I could chug an entire keg of vodka and never feel it."

Not entirely true - his mouth had tingled a little, but then the nanoprobes sucked it all up. He'd been hoping maybe it had changed since the last time he'd tried... but no.

Kat took another drink of beer. "They make kegs of vodka?"

"You know what I mean," Josh said, irritated.

"Potato sack races - sober," she said. "Pretty scary stuff, McGrath. I see why you're bummed."

He made a perfect three-point throw of his beer bottle into the nearest trash can. He wasn't irritated with _her_, but with life. At nineteen he'd never been drunk, never had a hangover - just a clean-living kid following the rules. And now that he _could_ drink, he couldn't. It was a little thing - a very very little thing, hardly worth complaining about. Who _wanted_ a hangover, anyway?

He still felt cheated.

So he wasn't irritated with Kat. In fact, he decided abruptly, she was the silver lining in this situation. "Yeah. If only I had a reason to leave early."

"Mm," she said, swigging. "You mean, with someone?"

"Well... not with just _any_one."

She gave him a suspicious, amused look.

"I _am_ legal in all fifty states," he reminded her.

"Got a point there," she said, putting down her bottle. "Okay. I'm in. Let's go see if I can give you a hangover."


	5. Still The One

Note: This is set in the same vague, apparently angst-ridden future as my fic "Flesh and Steel".

**---**

**2. Wine**

Kat hates hills these days, but she doggedly trudges up this one, peace offering in hand.

"Here," she says, holding out the bottle of red wine to Josh, who's sitting on the ground in his tux, with his back to the low garden wall. "You looked like you needed reinforcements."

He takes the bottle and immediately uncorks it. "Yeah. How's the knee?"

She shrugs and begins the stiff, awkward process of sitting. "It's okay."

Her knee hurts like a sonovabitch, but she's not going to tell him that - not _tonight_, of all nights, when he already looks so defeated. She knows he still feels guilty about her knee.

As if it was his fault instead of hers that she jumped too slow and Psycho crunched it. _Dork_, she thinks, but fondly.

Josh puts the bottle to his lips and takes a pull. "It hasn't been as bad as I thought."

She gets settled into a position that won't make her leg cramp, and leans her titanium cane up against the wall. "Which is why you're way out here, alone, chugging wine."

"Trust me, if they had anything better, I wouldn't be." He grimaces and passes the bottle over. "No, really. It wasn't that bad, watching the ceremony and everything. I mean - I still _care_ about her, but... We broke up six years ago, you know? It's not fresh."

Kat swigs some wine and makes a face of her own. "Yeah, okay. I still don't know if inviting your ex to your wedding is classy or trashy."

"Classy," Josh says. His eyes are on the wedding reception below - the swirl of pink and red and black, the glowing white bride at the center. Music and happy voices drift up. "Laura's definitely classy."

Kat takes another swig and passes the wine back. "Valentine's Day, too."

He gives a faint smile. "That was always her plan. Even before we were dating - when she was a little girl, she had it mapped out to the last detail."

Kat's always wanted to get married - _if _she gets married, and that's a pretty big freaking _if_ - in a plane, so she can shout her vows while skydiving. But an enormous, frilly red-and-pink V-Day wedding is okay too, she supposes. "They even _have_ Valentine's in China?"

He shrugs. Takes a drink. "Might explain why her grandparents looked so confused," he finally says, with another glimmer of a smile.

Kat snorts, and then they lapse into comfortable silence for a long time, trading the bottle back and forth, watching the reception go on merrily without them.

_Josh picked a nice spot to angst_, she thinks, looking up at the flowering trees and the star-filled night beyond. It's quiet and peaceful, and it smells nice, what with all the flowers.

"So what was your plan?" she asks after a while.

"For what?"

"Your wedding. And don't tell me Valentine's Day, 'cause I'm not buying it." She knows, because she's been his partner for nearly five years, that Josh mostly only remembers the holidays where you eat a lot and watch football.

He grins at her - and really grins this time, all the way to his eyes. "I wanted to jump out of a plane. You know, skydive? But Laura never liked that idea."

Kat grabs her cane and leans on it, hauling herself to her feet. "Guess it's a good thing you didn't marry her."

"Yeah." He gets up too, with less difficulty, and carefully places the half-empty bottle on top of the decorative stone wall. "I guess it is."

She holds out her free hand and he takes it, squeezing gently once before he lets go, and then they walk down the hill together.


	6. Refrigerator Science

**3. Milk  
**  
"I'm not touching that," Kat said.

"Well, _I'm_ not touching it," Josh declared. "It looks like Biocon's junior-high science fair project."

They looked at each other, then stepped back from the fridge and called, "Berto -!" at the same time.

Berto came into the kitchen with justifiable caution. "What?" he asked, then caught sight of the gallon of milk sitting in the fridge - exactly where it had been sitting for the two months they'd been out on the road. He caught a whiff of it, too, and coughed. "Um - who forgot to throw out the milk?"

"It doesn't matter who forgot," Josh said, hurriedly enough to make it obvious that he had. "But someone needs to throw it out now."

The milk had curdled into oozy, yellowish clumps and grown a nice skin of fuzzy mold that Kat could see through the plastic. It was scary. It was scarier than any six bad guys they'd ever faced, no question. And it smelled pretty bad, too.

Berto raised his hands and backed out of the room. "Oh, no. I'm an engineer, not a biologist. You guys are the heroes - _you_ do it."

Kat looked at Josh and Josh looked at Kat. Neither one said anything for a long moment.

"Okay, _fine_," Josh finally said, caving first just like Kat knew he would. He grabbed the handle of the plastic milk jug, then untwisted the cap and gagged. "Ugh! This reeks more than -"

"- your socks?" Kat finished drily. She went in search of said laundry, which she needed to start if they had a hope of getting clean clothes by next year. But she kept one eye on the kitchen to make sure the job got done.

Josh poured the milk down the drain of the kitchen sink, clumps and all. Then he rinsed out the plastic jug, stomped it flat, and tossed it into the recycling bin. _Then_ he took the bin outside, where they wouldn't have to smell it all week until trash pickup.

Josh came back in, dusting off his hands and grumbling. "You totally owe me one."

"Okay." Kat went over and kissed his cheek, sweet and soft, and hid her grin at the way his breath hitched. "And now... we're even."


End file.
